City of the Lost l-1

by Mary H. Herbert

  “Thank you. What I’d like to do now is look around the grounds.”

  Mariana pursed her lips. She knew well Linsha’s skill at gathering information. “Do you know something about Iyesta’s departure?”

  “No more than you. I just want to satisfy my own curiosity.”

  The half-elf scanned the eastern sky where a blue-white star was glimmering on the horizon. “It will be dawn soon. If you will wait for daylight, I will escort you.”

  Linsha knew she had little choice now. Of course, it was very possible more people knew about the labyrinth under the city, yet Iyesta had deliberately told her only she and the dragons knew of the eggs. If she had an escort following her everywhere she went, she would not be able to visit the egg chamber. That would have to wait for later when she could go alone.

  There was nothing else for it. Dismounting, she followed Mariana to a lightless camp in the shelter of the courtyard wall. A sentry led the horses away. Lanther threw down a blanket and stretched out on his back to rest. While Mariana treated the raw wounds on her wrists, Linsha recounted the trial and Sir Remmik’s verdict.

  “What will he do now?” Mariana asked.

  “If he doesn’t recapture me, and I can’t find a way to clear my name, he will have me blacklisted from the Order. I will become an exile and a target for every Solamnic Knight who wishes to remove a blight from the good reputation of the Order.” Linsha heard herself and recognized the bitterness creeping into her voice. She thought this would never happen again. The ugly business with the Clandestine Circle in Sanction had been bad enough. She had been blacklisted for several months while she tried to convince the Solamnic High Council that Lord Bight was better left alive and the Clandestine officers had overstepped their authority. The Council finally reinstated her pending the outcome of the trial and cleared her record when the case against her fell apart. Sadly, she did not think that was going to happen this time, unless she found the culprits and presented them, their bloody weapons, and their signed confessions to Sir Remmik.

  “Unless, of course, the entire garrison is wiped out,” Lanther commented from his blanket.

  Linsha had to wrench her thoughts back to what he had just said. “What?”

  The Legionnaire put his hands behind his head. “If the entire Solamnic garrison is wiped out by some disaster, you won’t have to worry about the blacklist,” he pointed out.

  Linsha wasn’t amused. “I don’t want my reputation cleared that way.” She rubbed her eyes. The excitement of the escape had worn off, and she felt like something the cat left on the stoop.

  “Just a thought.”

  “I’ve been through this before,” she explained. “I will regain my rank again.” She said it with more hope than conviction.

  Mariana’s pale oval face turned toward her in surprise. “Again? Do the Solamnics make a habit of blacklisting you?”

  Lanther made a hard, scornful sound. “Forget them. Join the Legion. We will take you any time you say the word.”

  Linsha leaned back against the warm stone wall without answering and let her eyes slide closed. While she admired the Legion and respected their work, the Solamnic Order was her heart and soul and had been in her blood since she was old enough to hear the tales of Sturm Brightblade and her uncles, Sturm and Tanis, who died in the service of the Order. She was not yet ready to turn her back on the Knighthood no matter how often it tried to get rid of her.

  Someone pressed a cup into her hand. Without opening her eyes, she inhaled the rich fruity fragrance of a red wine vinted in Mirage and drank it to the dregs. Her cloak was pulled warmly about her shoulders. Lethargy stole over her, warm and languorous and heavy with sleep.

  But true sleep came only fitfully and was beset by bad dreams and visions that appeared and vanished with irritating abruptness. Pictures formed in her mind-her family; her brother, Ulin, standing on a strange-looking promontory and staring at the sky; her aunts, Laura and Dezra, standing at the top of the stairs of the Inn of the Last Home; her father, Palin, and her mother, Usha, saying nothing and looking grim. These images would glow with perfect clarity like flashes of lightning and then be gone.

  Worst of all were the visions of the wind and the storm and the ambush. She could see the pounding rain, the slick, drenched ground, the ruins, and scattered glimpses of the Knights as they struggled with their foes. She saw Sir Morrec try to rally his men with his call. The black, indistinct figure lunged at her, and she saw again the blade sink into his chest. Then she saw the second man who stalked her. In one brief and brilliant illumination of memory, she saw the form who leaped out of the darkness and swung at her head with a short, heavy club. Something about him seemed familiar. His stance or the way he moved or something about his build-Linsha did not know, and her dreams did not give her clarification. They only teased her with hints of memory filled in with gleanings from her imagination.

  She had only dozed there for two short hours when Mariana shook her out of the strange dreamworld. She came out of it slowly like a drunk out of a stupor, and when she pulled herself upright and forced her eyes to open on a new morning, she felt more exhausted than she had before her rest. The dreams faded away.

  “Sorry to wake you so soon.” The half-elf looked down at her with sympathy. In the clear light of morning a quirk of her dual heritage was revealed. Mariana had one blue eye and one green eye as clear as gems. Come,” she said. “We must get you out of sight.”

  Linsha accepted her hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. Pain shot through her neck and arms from the uncomfortable position she had kept the past few hours. Groaning, she stretched her tight and weary muscles. This had been a very difficult six days. She would have given anything for some of her grandmother’s tarbean tea and a huge plate of eggs and ham from the Inn’s kitchen. Instead, Mariana handed her a steaming cup of Khurish kefre strong enough to strip the hair from hides. She tasted it and grimaced, then dumped the contents down her throat. It flowed down hot and powerful and jolted her tired body awake.

  “If you feel as terrible as you look,” the captain suggested, “perhaps we should get you a healer. The bruises on your face have turned a charming shade of green.”

  “Thank you,” Linsha said with a weak grin. “Any more of that kefre and I’ll need a healer. Where is Lanther?” She pointed to the empty space on the ground where his blanket had been.

  “He left a while ago. He said he would be back to get you, so look around while you can.”

  She considered asking if she could investigate on her own, then promptly answered herself. No. There were too many guards and militia around the palace grounds who considered this their territory. They would not favor someone else poking around the place to look for evidence of their missing dragonlord-at least not without their help. Perhaps later, if she did not find anything of significance here-and she really did not expect to-she could slip away and try to find the entrance to the labyrinth where the water weird guarded the stairs. Iyesta had said the brass dragon scale would allow her to enter the passages safely.

  She took a deep breath. The morning was fresh and cool with a sharp breeze from the sea. No clouds marred the perfect sky. It was a beautiful day to do anything but evade capture and explore an underground labyrinth.

  She picked up two lanterns from a pile of gear and lit them with tiny flames from the cooking fire.

  “I’ll not leave yet,” she said to Mariana and handed her a lantern. “Let’s go this way.”

  The two women walked out of the courtyard and made their way across the wide ruins to one of the lushly overgrown gardens. Several other militia and guardsmen joined them until they had a group of eight striding along behind them.

  “Do you know of a series of passages under the palace grounds?” Linsha asked.

  Mariana nodded. “Iyesta did not like anyone to go down there because she kept her treasure in the large chamber under her throne room, but most of us know about it.”

  “Has anyone
gone down there recently?”

  The half-elf grew thoughtful. “I know a group of the dragon’s guards went downstairs through the throne room entrance to be sure the treasure was intact. We feared Iyesta might have taken her treasure and left for good.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “No. Nothing was touched and there was no sign of her.” Mariana looked around curiously at the path they took. She was a tall, well-balanced warrior who was fiercely loyal to the dragonlord and the militia, and someone who took her job very seriously. She had made it her business to know every inch of the grounds of the palace, yet she knew of no reason why Linsha would bring her to this particular area. “What do you know about the passages?” she demanded.

  “That they are much more extensive than mere passages under this palace,” Linsha said.

  She slowed down along a narrow path and scanned the crumbling, ancient buildings around her, looking for the one she remembered. Then she saw it, its doorway nearly lost in a mass of vines and flowering creepers. She led the way inside and found the steep stairs that led downward. The others followed silently.

  The light swiftly faded behind them, and the damp, cool darkness took over. Linsha held her lantern high and found the right passage that led downward into the labyrinth.

  The half-elf chuckled mirthlessly at the stone walls around her. “I did not know that entrance was here. I wonder what other entrances she had hidden around.”

  Linsha was about to reply when she noticed something slightly different. She stopped so fast, the captain behind her bumped into her back and jogged the lantern in her hand, sending shadows jigging madly over the walls. Fearfully, Linsha pushed the lamp into Mariana’s hand and strode forward several paces where she could be away from the smoke and smell of the burning lantern. She sniffed the dank air slowly and deliberately, and she caught it again-a faint smell that had not been there the few days ago when she came this way with Iyesta.

  “Mariana, leave the lamps and come here,” she insisted.

  The half-elf heard the tone in her voice and did not argue. When she reached Linsha, she started to say something then she, too, found the taint in the air. Her brow lowered to a worried frown. From her elf-blood she had inherited stronger senses, including a more powerful sense of smell. She knew immediately from which direction the smell emanated, and with Linsha beside her, she hurried along the passage. The rest of the group followed close on their heels. The tunnel here was high and wide and skillfully built, full of moving air, echoes, and a sense of space.

  “I don’t know where this leads,” Linsha said.

  “I don’t either,” was Mariana’s only reply.

  They said nothing more for nearly a quarter of an hour as they walked through the dark passages of Iyesta’s lair and followed a smell that grew stronger with every passing minute. Even the soldiers of the guard and the militia had caught the smell and murmured worriedly among themselves.

  All too soon the stench became heavy and pervasive. Linsha and Mariana covered their noses with their sleeves and pressed on in the thick darkness.

  Something small and multi-legged skittered out of the light, its claws making hard scratching noises on the stone. The two women exchanged glances. They both recognized the creature in the brief glimpse they had before it disappeared-a large carrion beetle. And where there was one, there were usually more.

  Linsha held the lantern overhead. There was a mutual gasp. More beetles clung to the wall and the ceiling of the passage, their oblong bodies iridescent with a sickly greenish light reflected from the lantern. So replete were they that they did not move as the group passed by them with lanterns.

  “I believe we’re near the throne room,” Mariana said quietly. “There are supposed to be more large chambers under there connected by passages large enough even for Iyesta.”

  “Did anyone notice this smell when they went down to check Iyesta’s hoard?”

  The half-elf s voice was muffled through the cloth of her sleeve. The reek was so strong now that her eyes were watering. “I don’t believe so. That was three days ago. They would have investigated this.”

  Just ahead, at the farthest edge of the light, they saw the passage come to an end in a high-arched doorway.

  Beetles clung to the doorframe and scuttled across the floor. The blackness beyond was impenetrable, and out of the void came a stench so foul that the searchers could hardly draw breath.

  Fighting off fear and sickness, Linsha, Mariana, and the soldiers groped forward into the dreadful opening. The walls and ceiling around them vanished into a vast space that echoed with their footsteps and the sound of uncountable insects scrabbling and chewing and chittering in the darkness.

  Linsha raised the lantern again. The feeble lantern light spread a small pool of pale light across the great floor. It was not nearly bright enough to light the entire cavern, but it was enough to show them the end of their search. Her hand flew to the dragon scales on the chain under her shirt. Mariana gave a cry of despair.

  They had found Iyesta.

  14

  Mourning a Friend

  She lay sprawled across the floor of the abandoned stone chamber, a great hulking carcass that stretched almost from wall to wall. They knew it was she by the size of the corpse and by the piles of brass scales that heaped on the floor where the carrion beetles had chewed them loose to get at the flesh beneath. Withered and tattered skin hung over the skeleton like a ragged blanket. Bone shone through the rents and gaps in the half-devoured flesh. It was difficult to tell how long she had been dead, for the beetles had been hard at work and through the gaping holes and tears in the skin, the searchers could see the corpse writhe with the gorging insect bodies.

  “Paladine preserve us!” Mariana moaned. “What did this to her?”

  Huddled around the two small lanterns, the group made its slow way around the corpse toward the head. What they found dismayed them all.

  “Oh, gods,” Linsha murmured for everyone.

  The long, supple neck lay collapsed on the stone floor, mostly eaten away by the beetles, but where the head should have been was nothing but a dried pool of blood.

  “Someone took her head,” breathed Mariana. “Who would do that?”

  “Another dragon,” Linsha said flatly.

  “Thunder?” gasped one of the soldiers.

  The captain shook her head in disbelief. “How would a dragon have gotten in here? We’ve doubled the guards on this palace since Iyesta’s disappearance.”

  “Since her disappearance,” Linsha repeated. “What about the night of the storm? All this time we’ve worried for her and looked for her, she’s been dead below our feet.” She whirled around, glaring at the tiny pool of light thrown from the lanterns. “We need more light. We must learn what happened here. Who killed her? Who took her head?”

  Mariana readily agreed. “You three. Go back the way we came. Bring torches and all the help you can find. Tell anyone who comes down here to wear a mask. You three-” she turned to the next set of soldiers-“take word to the city elders, the Legion, and the Solamnic fortress that Iyesta is dead. I’m sure you are smart enough to leave Lady Linsha’s name out of your report. Now, you two-” she spoke to the remaining soldiers-“there is another entrance over there, large enough for a dragon. Get torches and see if that corridor leads to the treasure vault. The way should be shorter than the way we came.”

  The guards and the militia soldiers were quite willing to obey, anything to get out of that chamber of reeking death. They took one of the lanterns and departed to their tasks, leaving Linsha and Mariana alone in the darkness that rustled and clicked with the sounds of thousands of carrion beetles.

  Linsha stifled a shudder. This was so unbelievable.

  How could Iyesta be dead? She was vibrantly alive and well and… invincible!.. only six days ago. What had happened to her?

  Linsha heard an odd, stifled sound and turned to see Mariana wipe tears from her eyes. Her strong shoulders were sh
aking. Linsha felt like weeping herself, but not here, not yet.

  She strode around the corpse to the opposite side to examine it from a different angle and to allow the half-elf a measure of time to grieve alone. She lifted the lantern and began a careful and gruesome examination of the corpse under the feeble light. There wasn’t much to see. Except for the missing head, the dragon’s body was fairly intact despite the beetles. She had not been blasted or burned with sorcery or seared with another dragon’s breath weapon. It looked to Linsha as if the dragon had walked into the chamber and dropped dead in her tracks. A few hours ago, Linsha would have said that was impossible. Of all the possible clues or evidence Linsha had hoped to find down here, a dead dragon had never occurred to her.

  A sickening thought suddenly struck her like a blow to the ribs. The dragon eggs. Iyesta had trusted them to her. What if they, too, had been destroyed? And what of the guardian, Purestian? For that matter, Linsha’s thoughts bolted up another path, where were the gold and silver dragons who had befriended Iyesta and stayed in her realm to serve her? Anger, grief, and blinded frustration swarmed into her heart like giant wasps stinging her to tears. She shook her head savagely.

  The fact that Iyesta’s head was missing and the body withered pointed a finger to Thunder. Linsha could not believe that any one of the monstrous dragon overlords would have slipped into the Missing City unnoticed, killed Iyesta, taken her head, drained her magical energy, and left. Those dragons would have erupted into the city like comet, blasting death and destruction. They would have fought the brass for the thrill of the kill and, after taking her head, they would have burned Mirage to the ground.

  No, this killing was done in secret by an assassin who did not wish to be found or even suspected until he was long gone. It was something Thunder would do. The big blue could not fight Iyesta face to face and hope to win. His move would be a surprise, in the dark, in a tight cramped place where Iyesta could not use her wings or size to the best advantage. The great storm had come from the west, so it passed over his realm first. He could have followed the storm to use it as a shield and a diversion as it raged over the Missing City. He might have lured Iyesta down here, and killed her, and taken her head to add to his totem of skulls. Linsha hoped she was wrong.